Indicted INEC staff return bribe money – Chairman

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said some of its staff accused of benefitting from a N3.4 billion bribe money in the 2015 general elections have refunded their share.

The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, disclosed this when he visited the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, in Abuja.

A statement by spokesman of the EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, quoted the INEC chairman as saying that 70 of the affected staff in three states were still in denial.

Yakubu, according to Uwujaren, said they would be referred to the EFCC for further investigation.

The INEC chairman also said about five INEC political appointees, who are either National Commissioners or Resident Commissioners, were found wanting.

Also indicted, he said, are 21 retired staff mostly acting under the aegis of WANEO (West African Network of Election Observers).

Yakubu said 21 retirees had been blacklisted from monitoring elections and other activities organised by INEC in the future, according to Uwujaren.

Magu expressed the anti-graft agency’s readiness to prosecute all the indicted INEC staff.

“We are already prosecuting some of the INEC staff, we have started in Lagos and we are in the process in Port-Harcourt, Kano and Gombe,’’ Magu reportedly said. (NAN)